


kept on the wing

by yasgorl



Series: from my knees grew flowers [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Feminization, M/M, Masturbation, Nightmares, Roleplay, Thumb-sucking, Verbal Pet Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:49:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8190691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yasgorl/pseuds/yasgorl
Summary: “I just wanted to know if it was alright — to get you things,” Steve says, stiffly. He’s very still under Bucky, his hands on Bucky’s head and chest.
“Things,” Bucky repeats, flatly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> there is embedded (some of it is nsfw) art in this story, illustrated by my amazing friend Sparrows, who offered and sent me into tears of joy/screams of anguished delight. I love you, birb <333

They’re unwinding on the living room sofa after a long day. Steve’s looking at schematics for a busted engine part, turning the 3D model around on his tablet with his index finger every once in a while and doing a whole lot of frowning. He’d bought an old Ford truck from an auction the Sunday before and he’s been meticulously planning out how to fix it up for a week straight.

Bucky’s sitting lengthwise beside him, with his back against the armrest and his feet tucked under Steve’s thighs. The house is blissfully quiet, save for the distant hum of cicadas outside, and burbling from the teapot Bucky had set on the stove ten minutes before. He flicks idly through a slew of images on his tablet. He’s taken to doing it boldly these days, at times he knows Steve will be walking around and likely to instinctively look over Bucky’s shoulder without even meaning to. He wants it to happen, imagines having a fraught, angry conversation where Steve makes the slightest show of judgment or unease and Bucky can unleash the maelstrom of uncertainty and residual shame tangled around that inexplicable, gut-deep desire. But it never happens. Instead, Steve sees Bucky looking at, say, a black pair of stockings with kitten ears at the knees and kisses his cheek, says, _that’ll look good on you, baby._ And Bucky simultaneously wants to either dissipate into a cloud of steam on the spot or thwack Steve on the back of his head with the tablet.

He wriggles his toes under Steve and shifts in his seat. Steve settles a gentling hand at Bucky’s calf absentmindedly, eyes glued to his screen, frown deepening the line of his brow. Bucky flicks the next image without even looking down. Usually he’ll settle on an item and look at every possible iteration and design. The last hour has been devoted to aprons. Every once in a while he’ll freeze up and stare down for an unseeing moment and a hook will snag in his gut and yank hard, fast, and he’ll know to hold his finger down on the page and carefully slide it to his bookmarks. Sometimes it’s like he can almost feel the texture through the screen, like a sense memory of his own, like he’s trailed his fingers along the careful stitching or slid his cheek against the cloth.

The screech of the teapot snaps him out of it. He jumps in place a little and Steve looks up, a question in his eyes.

Bucky thumbs the tablet to sleep and sets it on the sofa. He pulls his legs out from under Steve and swings around in his seat, then hurries to the kitchen and takes the kettle off the range. When he looks up Steve is oblivious, eyes turned back down on his work. In Bucky’s mind, it’s like the screen’s come to life, blaring a ray of light up to the ceiling like the holy grail. He wants nothing more than to take it to the bedroom and huddle over it alone, zooming in on the details, fingers careful on the screen like they might reach through and trace along the fabric.

Steve sets his tablet aside as Bucky approaches with tea and a bowl of fruit for them both. He’s set everything on a circular tray, held carefully between his hands. He’s hyperaware of Steve’s eyes on him as he sets the tray down on the coffee table, the way he bends down at the knees and waist to do so; yielding, dutiful. His chest flushes warm. He serves Steve first. _That’s what he’s doing,_ Bucky thinks, _serving him._ It’s like pressing at an aching tooth, wanting to feel that squirm in his belly.

“Thanks, baby,” Steve says, taking the saucer with its teacup in the center from Bucky as he approaches. Bucky can’t say anything in return, not even a _you’re welcome_ , because he feels like if he has to speak in the moment it’s either gonna come out wobbly and awful or he’s gonna say something terrible to compensate -- _fuck off, Rogers_ \-- and ruin the moment. He bites at his bottom lip instead and takes his own tea in both hands, settling down next to Steve.

“Can we watch something?” Bucky asks, too loud for the silence. His little performance feels obvious and kind of gross now, and even though Steve isn’t laughing or making any of it weird, Bucky still feels a crawl down the back of his neck.

“Sure,” Steve replies, pausing with his cup to his lips. He sets it down and reaches for the pad that controls everything from the alarm system to the lights. It even displays live feedback from the radial shield surrounding the safehouse. Or just — their _house_ , now. It logged all the wildlife crossing their border, and in case of humans was programmed to set off an alarm. Sometimes Bucky would idly scroll through, noting deer and raccoons and squirrels and more squirrels and feeling like he was living in a page out of a children’s story. It had logged them both the very first time and sometimes he pulls that up and just stares at it; a miniature outline of Bucky and Steve, the pattern of their body heat, height and weight, like a character selection screen.

He’s drawn back by the clink of Steve’s cup against his saucer as he sets it down. They’ve got only about a thousand channels through the satellite, and Steve’s settled on public programming. Bucky’s eyes focus back in on a black stretch of stage, soft lighting falling on delicate, outstretched limbs as a line of dancers fill the foreground. Music swells. The dance ebbs and flows like a tide at sunset, graceful bodies clothed in puffs of sheer pastel. He sips at his tea with his eyes on the screen. His cup’s empty before he knows it.

Steve reaches over and takes it from Bucky’s hand.

“That was something, wasn’t it?” he asks, tugging Bucky closer.  Bucky grunts in agreement, giving a little resistance until he’s about halfway down. Then he lets himself fall and lays his head in Steve’s lap. Steve’s hand settles at Bucky’s side. He’s turning the volume up, stretching his legs out on the coffee table. Bucky lets his eyes slip shut briefly and makes the tiniest motion with his head, rubbing his cheek against Steve’s thigh.

Steve notices anyway, because his hand comes up to brush Bucky’s hair away from his face. He slides it down and rubs at Bucky’s chest, thumb swiping at a nipple over his shirt. _God, but it feels so good._ Just the tiniest shiver, a little spark of sensation as it furls tighter with every pass of Steve’s thumb, a responding stirring low in Bucky’s gut.

Steve adjusts so he’s sitting lower in his seat and Bucky lifts his head momentarily as Steve shifts. On screen a single ballerina parts from the others and leaps across the stage.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Steve asks.

Bucky grunts out an affirmative. Then, “Don’t make me look at you.”

Steve makes a soft sound.

“Alright,” he says. His other hand settles on Bucky’s hair as his left pats at his chest, forsaking his nipple for the time being. Bucky stifles a disappointed groan. They’re gonna have a Talk instead.

“I’m gonna ask you something,” Steve says, his voice so carefully neutral Bucky’s heart stutters in his chest.

Bucky tugs his arm out from under him and covers his eyes with his hand.

“Okay,” he says, swallowing around the dread crawling up his throat. He lets himself imagine the worst possible situation. Steve saying he doesn’t want to do this weird shit anymore, thanks very much, and that he wants his rough and tumble Bucky back, his right hand and old friend. He thinks that might be even worse than Steve saying he was going to leave forever; having Steve stick around so Bucky would have to pretend he didn’t want any of this either and it was all fine by him to be — normal — to not be this way.

“Spill,” he says gruffly, world dark behind the shield of his hand and his tightly closed eyes.

“I just wanted to know if it was alright — to get you things,” Steve says, stiffly. He’s very still under Bucky, his hands on Bucky’s head and chest.

“Things,” Bucky repeats, flatly. Everything goes quiet, even the sound in the background seems hushed.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Steve asks into the silence. Bucky’s mind is going a mile a minute, a flood of images flitting behind his eyelids. Soft, delicate, fluffy things. Puffy things. Dresses and maybe — shoes and satin and lace. He’s about a thousand bookmarks ahead of himself and probably Steve so he swallows hard and shoves it all down. Steve is probably going to get him an oven mitt or something and be very proud of himself and Bucky will be the ingrate acting like he’d gotten coal at Christmas.

“It’s a yes,” Bucky says, finally, and Steve huffs out a laugh. He takes Bucky’s hand in his and squeezes it and then Bucky’s bringing it up to his lips before he even knows what he’s doing, filled with something he can’t name. He bites down gently on the flesh between Steve’s thumb and index finger, then kisses it, turns Steve’s hand over and kisses it again.

“There’s a good girl,” Steve says quietly, and Bucky has to cover his eyes again as his heart thumps hard in his chest. Steve resumes his absent-minded petting, not trying to actively rile Bucky up, just threading his fingers through Bucky’s hair and rubbing at his chest and stomach every once in a while, and they watch together until it’s time for bed.

*

Bucky slips into bed first while Steve is washing up. He curls up right in the middle with his back to the door so Steve knows to slide up behind him and take him into his arms. He almost wishes he could keep his shirt on to sleep, just to have Steve sliding his hands underneath to get at him, the pull of the fabric as it’s rucked up, like he’s a present Steve has to unwrap.

“Mm,” Steve hums out, as soon as he’s in bed and is pulling Bucky into his arms. He stifles an end-of-day moan into the back of Bucky’s neck, pulling him closer and hooking his leg around Bucky’s lower half, like an octopus devouring its prey. Bucky lets his eyes slip shut and his mouth fall open. Steve’s just lazily rutting against Bucky’s ass and rubbing his lips against his neck, gripping at his chest with his big hands. Bucky lets out a sigh, curls an arm back so he’s lightly gripping Steve’s head as he kisses and sucks at Bucky’s shoulder, his throat. Bucky’d seen a video of an octopus in a tank, a mechanical toy boat mindlessly chugging along the top. It had reached out lightning-fast with its tentacles and pulled it to the bottom, engulfed it into its beak, mantle bobbing in the water as it sent as many tentacles as it could into the plastic hull of the boat, opening it up and dismantling it, attempting to consume it. The little motor in the back had caught and spun and caught. _Chug, chug, chug_ , it wanted to go but it wasn’t allowed, because something else wanted it more.

“Eat me,” Bucky says, and Steve huffs out a laugh against Bucky’s neck. The hot gust of his breath against the wet suck marks he’s left behind make Bucky shiver.

“Roasted? Boiled? Smoked?” Steve asks, mild, slightly amused. His fingers are at Bucky’s ass, sliding between his cheeks. Bucky curls one knee up, steadies his foot at his inner thigh to prop his leg up. He reaches down and grabs at his cheek, parting himself with one hand for Steve.

“Mmm,” he lets out, as Steve’s fingers find his hole and rub there, then slip inside to slick him up.

“That’d be too bland, wouldn’t it?” Steve asks. His hand pulls back and there’s a crinkle of plastic as he wets them with more lube. Then the movement of his hand on his cock between them, then its sliding between Bucky’s parted cheeks, pressing at his hole.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs out, head falling back on his pillow. He moans out steadily at that first, delicious slide in.

“I’d have to pick a recipe first. Rub you up with oil and spices and let you marinate for a while. Soak it up,” Steve’s saying as he keeps pushing in, in, until he’s pressed against Bucky’s ass.

_God, the texture alone. The wet slide of oil and grit of the spices._

Steve flattens a palm against Bucky’s navel and pushes down, pulls Bucky against him so he can wedge in that last inch. Bucky moans out. The pressure of Steve’s hand makes his gut go tight, makes him feel the fat, hot length of Steve up in his gut even sharper. He hums out and grinds his ass back on Steve as best he can, feeling Steve’s cock circle and move inside him. Fuck, but it feels so good, so fucking good. Steve’s thick enough that he’s pressing up on that spot inside Bucky without even doing much, and every little circle of Bucky’s hips sends a jolt of pleasure from his ass to his swelling balls, his own dick fattening up and leaking at the head.

Steve’s hand slides up Bucky’s stomach to grip at his chest. He molds one firm pec under his arm and squeezes. Bucky sighs out at the pressure.

“Where’d I find you?” Steve asks, his voice a low murmur. He’s thrusting up against Bucky. The position makes it difficult for him to pull all the way out so he plasters himself all along Bucky’s back, holds him tight and rubs at his chest while his hips work. It’s like a low fire deep in Bucky’s gut, getting gently and stubbornly stoked.

“Um. Farmer’s Market,” Bucky says, and his face flushes. He grips at the back of Steve’s hand, trails his fingers carefully along Steve’s as they curl up to pluck at Bucky’s nipple. “ _Oh._ ”

“That’s what I thought. Found myself a fat little pig at the market and took it home.”

Steve thrusts against Bucky’s ass and plucks at his nipple again.

“Ohh, Jesus. Uh,” Bucky grits out. Then Steve wets his fingers and rubs at each nipple, taking the furled little nubs between his fingers, swiping at them, pinching, then holding tight enough so he can pluck at them like strings. Electric jolts of pleasure shoot straight to Bucky’s dick, to the hot pulse of pleasure in his ass as Steve shoves his dick in and out.

“Kept you out back in a wooden pen, tied to the gate with a rope around your neck. Fed my little hog every day and watched him roll around in the mud.”

Bucky has to slap a hand over his mouth to keep the noises he wants to make at bay. High little sounds that escape as he moans. His skin’s gone tight and shivery even though he’s warm all over, burning up inside as Steve steadily pokes and prods at him, dicks his insides and plays with his sensitive nipples. He’d be blissfully ignorant of anything, wouldn’t he, immersed in the moment, all unabashed squeals and grunts when Steve would bring out his food and watch him waddle up to the trough. Soaking up the sun and rolling around in the cool mud. The thought is both terrifying and intensely alluring. He’d have it all over his naked body, cooling his vulnerable skin and caking dry in the heat, dripping viscous and thick from his belly, slipping into his crack and squishing up between his fingers. And then he’d be led away and hosed off and marked up and Steve would be thinking the whole time how good Bucky was gonna taste in his mouth, _oh fuck - oh -_

Bucky curls over and cries out as he comes, _ah, ah, ah._ Steve holds him at his chest and plows Bucky through it, working the most out of him, his dick pounding at that spot inside Bucky and making his balls grip up and unload, clench and unload, his cock pissing out his come, wetting up his thighs and stomach.

“Ohh, god. Oh, god. Uh. Uh,” Bucky grits out, high and weak as his ass clenches down and his stomach tenses through the aftershocks, Steve breathing hard and rutting against him. Then Steve’s pressing his forehead between Bucky’s shoulder blades and jamming his dick inside and shooting off, grunting as he comes. He huffs against Bucky’s neck for a little while. Then he pulls Bucky’s lax body closer.

“Jesus,” Steve breathes out. He rubs at Bucky’s chest as Bucky breathes and shakes, all ability to form some sort of intelligible response fucked out, conscience thought floating somewhere high and soft.

Bucky lets himself drift for a bit. Steve holds him, thumb swiping gently at Bucky’s chest until the sticky reality of his situation lassoes around his ankle and yanks him back down.

“Ugh,” Bucky says, shifting in Steve’s arms. He looks down to where he’s spattered wet at his belly and crotch.

“I know,” Steve says, consolingly.

Bucky wants to be able to just wipe down and get back to sleep, but he ends up stiff-legging it to the bathroom and rinsing off with warm water. He inspects himself in the mirror before leaving. There’s a trail of bruises up his shoulder which follow the line of his neck. His nipples are tender and pink, swollen. He cups his chest with both hands and squeezes gently, sighing out at the weak, responding clutch of his gut, the residual spark making his dick jerk in a way that says if he keeps at it he can get going again in no time. Steve had sucked them swollen and sensitive and pink. God, he wants - he wants Steve just doing that, maybe. Giving them all the attention and getting Bucky off on them alone. He stares down at the clutch of his hands on his chest, pushing his pecs up so they look like - cleavage. They’re already firm and round but like this there’s a little valley in the middle and his flesh pushes up into twin mounds. He leans in forward to deepen the illusion. If he had a shirt on Steve could peek right down it, sneaky and hungry, wanting to see and take and touch with Bucky oblivious to his intent. Bucky’s cheeks flush so hard he has to splash cold water on his face and dry off again.

He pockets the thought, shakes his hands out and turns the light off as he leaves.

When he gets back to the bedroom Steve’s changed the sheets.

“Liked it?” Steve asks gently, as Bucky slides back into bed and cuddles up to Steve’s side. Bucky lays his head on Steve’s chest and wraps an arm and leg around him. He can hear Steve’s heartbeat thudding in his ribcage, the expansive lift and fall of his chest moving Bucky up and down. It’s like sticking a seashell to your ear and hearing the ocean. 

 

 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, yawning. “Wanna be a bunny next time.”

Steve snorts.

“You can keep me in a cage and feed me cilantro.”

And he’d have a sniffy nose and a round, furry body and short, hoppy legs.

“Adorable,” Steve says, like he’s read Bucky’s mind. Then, “ouch, ouch,” as Bucky reaches up and pinches the skin at Steve’s neck. He wasn’t supposed to _say_ it. He lets go when he thinks Steve’s suffered enough; a total of two seconds. And if his head didn’t feel as heavy as a small boulder he’d reach up and bite down at the swell of Steve’s chest and Steve would just have to take it, like a long-suffering dog with a teething pup, yanking at its floppy ears and tumbling about in its pa’s fur.

Bucky sighs. Steve’s heart is steady and strong under his ear and he’s warm under the covers.

Sleep gradually carries him off.

*

Bucky wakes when the sun hits its zenith and the bedroom becomes a degree hotter than Bucky can comfortably tolerate, wrapped like a burrito under the duvet. Their bedroom gets the most sun in the house, which makes it ideal for reading when Bucky wants to curl up by the window with a book. He’d gotten a box of secondhand paperbacks at a flea market two weeks before from the nearest town to their place. It was a three hour drive away, and only had one main street at that so it was barely holding onto the title.

Bucky hits the bathroom first. He yawns while he pisses and wipes the whole seat down afterwards. He washes his hands and brushes his teeth and massages his face gently with a polenta cleanser he’d bought at an actual city where they’d gone to pick up items the local market couldn’t provide. He’d scattered a group of pre-teens as soon as he’d stepped in the store, and had never felt as out of place than hulking around between the mounds of multi-colored, fragrant slices of soap and tubs of exfoliants. He’d wanted nothing more than to walk over and maybe pick up every bath bomb in site but there was another group of girls there, colt-legged and long-haired, dressed in pastels like they’d come with the store and he’d done enough damage just walking in. So a fifteen dollar cleanser it was, and he’d crumbled the paper bag it came in at his side as he’d left to catch up with Steve, like it was a bagged lunch, so no one would pay any closer attention to what he was holding.

His mind’s still pleasantly floating in a sleepy fog as he makes his way down the hallway. It comes stuttering to a halt once he enters the kitchen. Steve’s empty coffee mug is in the sink, which means he’d drank it in a hurry, on the spot. Instead of opening the fridge for eggs, Bucky walks to the living room, fully awake. Steve’s sitting on the sofa almost completely dressed in his mission gear, combat boots on, duffle at his feet, utility belt stretched out on the coffee table. He’s intent over it, glancing up quickly as Bucky enters.

“Got a hit on the sensors we left back in May,” Steve says, glancing up from the probes he’s stacking on the table. They had the same purpose as Nat’s electroshock weapons, and the first time Steve had shown him Bucky had called them _Cap’s Bites_ for a week straight just to hear Steve grumble, _I’ll show you a Cap’s bite, alright._ In the case of a run-in Steve’s MO was to temporarily disable, preferably from a distance, and hightail it out as fast as his supersoldier legs could take him. At least that’s what he’d agreed he’d do but Bucky felt there were gigantic invisible quotation marks around _hightail it_ and _out_.

“That place had birds nests in it when we reconned,” Bucky says, automatically. His brain runs through all the possible ways he can get Steve from going, uselessly, because he’d made peace with the fact this would happen, and he’d made the decision to stay out of it. And then it’s tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

“You don’t have to go.”

Steve’s goes so still it’s like he’s turned to stone. Bucky can make out the breath he takes before he looks up.

“I do, Buck,” he says simply.

If he’d gotten angry, if he’d set his jaw in that SRG-patented stubborn-ass way, Bucky would have deflated like a balloon. Instead, a surge of anger rises up in him like a flare, and he swivels in place and strides back down the hallway to the bedroom and then he’s letting his hand slip on the doorknob so it shuts with a bang.

He feels a jolt of shame tug at his chest immediately. He’s being a giant ass. He’d made the decision and this was one of the possible results and he’s just gonna have to deal with it. Steve had just gotten to the point where he’d wanted to get Bucky something - _things,_ and now he was going to get him nothing at all, probably, and wasn’t that the least of what Bucky should be worried about anyways.

The pile of paperbacks near his nightstand catches his eye. They’re mostly battered pulps or Harlequins, silhouetted detectives on the covers with cigarettes dangling from their lips or couples intertwined in awkward tangles of limbs. None of the Harlequin poses looked comfortable to hold for more than a minute tops, and Bucky’s a pro at maintaining stress positions so he figures he knows better than most.

He’d tried a few of them out when he’d first carried his loot indoors after their drive back. Took it straight with him to the bedroom and shut the door and started pulling them one by one from the box, stacking them in little piles on the floor.

It was a little difficult maneuvering around into position by himself. Having Steve here to hold onto would have made things a lot easier, but there was no way in fuck Bucky was gonna willingly explain this, mostly because he didn’t even know much of why he was doing it himself.

But he could indulge in anything he wanted now, and no one was around to see or stop him.

The first two poses he’d tried had been utterly ridiculous and made Bucky huff out in silent laughter. The third title he picked up had DELICIOUSLY WICKED emblazoned on the front in script. This one wasn’t that bad. He’d held onto the corner of the bed’s baseboard and slid to his knees. Hauled a leg out behind him, toes in a delicate point, pushed his chest out, craned his neck back. He’d looked sideways so he could inspect his figure in the mirror. Ugh. It felt better than it looked. Putting himself down there on his knees, gripping his hero’s imaginary fleeing leg. The way his chest had to jut out while he did it because all he had to offer was himself. If his pleading wasn’t enough then maybe his body would be: _use me_. His cheeks had flamed hot and he’d abandoned the next pose. Kicked the book across the room. Then breathed out a sigh and picked it back up.

Now, he stalks around the room for a while. Being alone was good. It was what he wanted. Being alone on the days Steve was running errands or driving out to do harmless recon had allowed Bucky long stretches of time when he was truly and utterly free. It wasn’t like Steve stopped him from doing anything when they were together but it was like - there was nothing there to distract Bucky when he was truly alone. No sounds other than the ones he made, no one he had to be aware of, as if there was a program running in the back of his brain constantly, his spatial awareness of Steve or anyone else, and now it could shut down and rest. Steve wouldn’t blink an eye if Bucky scratched his balls in front of him or farted in bed or wanted to walk around in the buff for most of the day just because he could. But that wasn’t - the stuff Bucky ended up doing was everything else. He’d spent a whole day last week in his lace skirt and crop top; making breakfast and laying on the sofa watching TV, curled up with a cushion under his head and his legs akimbo. The skirt hiked up to his hips from the way his thighs were spread. _Unladylike_.

He liked wearing it for Steve and he’d worn it after that first time sometimes just for sex but it was automatically - _performance_ , even though Steve had accepted it wholly and didn’t blink twice at Bucky when he did. And sometimes the time alone was like a rehearsal, and Bucky could play it out exactly how he wanted it, could imagine Steve’s eyes on him, or maybe, cameras in hidden places, silently omniscient. And he could replay whichever part he wanted over and over again without there being a reaction to lead to the next bit, outside of what he could control. Once he was with Steve he could only play his own part. Alone, he could reduce it to just - the idea of someone or something looking at him, even if it was just the idea of what he would look like to himself, if some other part of him could watch through a bird’s eye view.

Well he was going to do something disgusting and utterly depraved, now. He was going to put his skirt on and jack off in it and stalk to the living room and smear it all over Steve’s uniform at his chest.

He’s stricken with guilt as soon as he thinks it, as if he’d already gone off and done it.

Steve doesn’t deserve that. He’d only agreed to what Bucky wanted.

Bucky feels awful enough to deprive himself of his skirt but he goes to his dresser anyway and slides the drawer open. He should do something quiet and reflective like read or meditate. Or useful; walk out there and help Steve check his supplies and load the car.

But this is the first test, he recognizes it. He has to stick to the promise he made himself. He can make it up to Steve later.

He slips out of his pants and folds them carefully on the back of the desk chair. He takes the skirt out and sits at the edge of the bed to slip it on. It still doesn’t fit exactly the way it’s supposed to, nothing’s changed there. But slipping it on feels like - everything goes calm and deep as the ocean inside him and all his senses zero in on it; the rough but delicate texture of the lace and the slide of the silken interior layer on his skin. The way the hemline flutters against his bare ass. He runs his fingers against it and twists around to see the back, smoothing the fabric down from his waist over his ass until his hands are on the bare skin at the back of his thighs, below the swell of his bottom.  He takes a calming breath and stands in place, following the long line of his bare legs in the mirror down to his feet. He watches his feet flex against the floorboards as he arches them one by one. _Say something, say something, say something._

The front door shuts with the faint buzz of the automatic locks and a muffled beep from the keypad. Bucky launches himself to the comm tucked against the side of the nightstand.

“Steve,” he says, desperate, clutching the comm between two hands up to his mouth.

There’s barely the faintest crackle before Steve responds. He sounds like he’s standing right there next to Bucky, a muted catch in his voice as he breathes, walking the path down to his transport.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“Don’t get yourself killed.”

There’s a brief pause. The huff of Steve’s laugh, then his voice, laden with affection.

“I won’t.”

“And don’t walk into anything you know you can’t handle. I’m serious. You see it’s too much you get your ass back here and you can damn well wait a day or two for backup.”

“What if it’s a week?” Steve asks. He’s breathing a little harder and there’s a low thunking sound in the background, probably the trunk getting loaded.

“You can wait a week. I’ll blow you first thing every morning to let out all that extra energy.”

“Jesus. Gonna make me walk back in there,” Steve says.

Bucky can only hold the comm tight in utter silence.

“I’ll see you. Keep your comm on,” Steve says, and Bucky lets out a pent up breath.

*

Bucky leaves the comm on the nightstand and sits beside it. He surveys himself in the mirror for a time, unmoving. Then he spreads his legs slowly and reaches under his skirt. He strokes at his dick, watching the skirt lift and fall over his moving hand like a puppet show.

He keeps at it until he’s fidgeting where he sits, breath catching and stomach tensing. Then he withdraws his hand. The skirt settles over his hard dick, standing up desperate between his legs, half hidden under the hemline like it's peeking out between curtain calls; unable to quell its excitement.

He slides down to the floor, knees spread wide, heels tucked into the back of his thighs with the frame of the bed hard against his back. He feels the stretch in his thighs and calves and hips, the arch of his feet. His cock and balls dangle heavy between his legs. When he bounces a little on his heels his dick bobs and waves around. It looks embarrassingly desperate. Ridiculous.

Bucky flushes hot and forces himself to do it again, throat clutching tight, eyes nailed to his reflection in the mirror. Bounce, bounce, bounce. He wiggles his hips and watches it wave about, side to side. A prickle of shame crawls up his throat and spreads to his chest. His nipples go tight.

He breathes out steadily then reaches over for the lube, slicks his hand up with just enough to ease the friction. _Look at you._ When Steve saw him like this he said things like _sweet girl_ but Bucky wasn’t being sweet at all. Steve was still out there throwing himself into a pit while Bucky was here doing - this.

He pulls at himself and watches the slide of his fist on his reddened flesh, the way his hanging balls feel even fatter and heavier. He takes the flushed head of his dick between his fingers and pets at it. A ticklish sensation builds at the tip. He gently holds it between his fingers and keeps stroking at it and the feeling shoots straight down to his swollen sac. He watches the slit at the tip gasp open like a little mouth and spit out precome. It catches under his fingers, making them slip a little on his sensitive skin. He grabs his cock and spreads the wet around the head with his thumb, biting down a groan as his balls throb. There’s an empty, needy feeling in his hole so he ruts his ass down uselessly against the floor, frustrated. He whines, head knocking back. _Shameless little slut. A filthy little hole needing a cock in it, aching and empty._ He dips his chin down and watches himself in the mirror, skirt bunched up on his hips, red cock bobbing and dripping between his open legs. He rests one elbow on his knee and reaches down.

Then he bats at his cock with his open hand.

“Uh,” Bucky grits out, face scrunching up. The slap sends a throb of pleasure shooting down his aching dick through his groin. He bites back a groan then opens his mouth and pants for it openly. He turns his eyes back up to the mirror and bats at his dick again, and again, and again, watching it sway helplessly and redden further and drool like a desperate thing. He stops right as his heavy sac begins to grip up, reaching down to tug at his balls, right at the edge of pain so that the building pressure in his groin stalls, then backs off the cusp. _A slut like you needs to come on a cock, don’t you. Spread your legs like a good little whore and let a real man give it to you._ Oh fuck, and there’s an image. Bucky on hands and knees, cock hanging between his legs as someone spreads his ass wide and plunges a thick, nasty stretch of dick in his hole. He’d have to come on it too, have to feel his throbbing length slap up against his belly as he was fucked good and well, slutty cock drooling down a line of wet. And he’d be panting for it, told what a filthy bitch he was for getting bred, and they’d smack his swollen cunt and watch it spasm, laugh as he moaned, fucked out and drooling.

Bucky cries out at the last, hard slap, then lets himself go so his legs flop lazy and askew. Then he’s scrambling for the lube and getting on all fours. He pushes his ass back in the direction of the mirror, hot all over his face and neck, before he realizes he can’t see a damn thing. He adjusts his positioning so his side’s towards the mirror and all he has to do is turn his head. Reaches back with slick fingers and presses at his aching hole. He can barely reach to fit them in so he gets up on his knees instead and oh - opens up exactly as he thought it would, hungry and accepting, clutching around the two fingers he slips inside. _Hungry little hole. Pink little mouth. Desperate cunt._

_Feed it,_ he thinks and presses a third finger in, groaning out open-mouthed into the air.

“Oh,” Bucky lets out, rocking down against his fingers. “Uh, uh.”

He holds his cock and balls up against his navel with his left hand. He feels the stretch of muscle in the arch of his feet as he steadies himself, in his thighs and the muscle at his hips. He watches in the mirror as he humps down against his hand, focuses on the place where his fingers disappear into his body. It’s not good enough - he wants - more. He wants to lay himself open and really see it.

  

 

Bucky pulls his fingers free and knee-walks to the mirror. Gets on his back with his ass towards it. He steadies his feet on either side of it and bends them. Twisting his torso in place a bit, he can see his fingers sink back in. He cups his sac and balls with his left hand, up and away. His hole’s shiny-wet around the entrance, clutching tight at his fingers as he plunges them in, then pouting out a little as he withdraws them. The positioning puts pressure on his chest, making him grunt out as he breathes. _Look at that hungry thing,_ he thinks, ugly and harsh, face flooded with warmth as he jams his fingers back in. He looks like a bug rolled onto its back, showing its soft underbelly, legs waving helplessly in the air except - he’s doing this to himself. And he wants more of it. He wants to be folded in half, knees to his chest and his desperate dick jutting up helpless between his legs and have Steve do it, slap Bucky’s aching length around and tell Bucky what filth he is and palm Bucky’s swollen sac and wiggle it around in his hand while Bucky gasps and cries. And then he’d have to push out and in with his aching hole to show where he wanted Steve to stick it, to plead with it because his real mouth was gagged so Steve wouldn’t have to put up with any of Bucky’s nonsense. Neither of them would.

He grows the image in his head and rabbit-fucks his ass with two fingers, in and out and in. Sensation builds sharp and fast, stabs of pleasure through his groin at every jab.

He moans, high and reedy, trying to breathe around the tight, building pressure in little gasps. He wedges his fingers in as deep as they’ll go and curls them up towards his navel, pressing and working that spot inside him relentlessly, radiating pulses of pleasure outward from his core. He can feel phantom echoes in his tight nipples, can feel his orgasm approaching like a faint tickle in the back of his throat, the moment before a sneeze stretched out and out and out.

_Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,_ and he’s pulling lightly at his swollen balls with one hand and just pressing inside his ass with the other, three thick fingers stuffed inside; hard and unyielding at that aching spot. He lets himself grunt and cry and writhe around and doesn’t let up a single bit, an ugly squirmy thing reduced to nothing but a slutty hole and that steady pressure and _oh, oh, oh, yeah, right there, right there, fuck my ass, fuck my ass, fuck -_

“Oh, god. Oh god,” Bucky grits out helplessly. His head knocks back as his body seizes. “Uh, uh, uh, oh god, uh.” He’s mindless with it, curled up, rocking back and forth on the floor into the press of his fingers in his hole, cock jerking and splattering come all over his thighs and stomach and dribbling down his swollen length, gut clutching as he shakes.

When he’s released from the worst of it Bucky feels wrung out and boneless. His arms fall to his side, chest heaving, knees knocking into the closet door. There’s a smear on the mirror near his ass. He breathes for a bit then curls his head forward and reaches down between his legs. He touches two fingers carefully to his hole. It’s swollen and pink, flinching from his touch as it pulses through the aftershocks. He rubs a little harder, grunting out at the near unbearable sensitivity, little shocks that shoot straight to the ache inside him.

He withdraws his fingers then scrambles to his hands and knees. Turns away from the mirror slightly and spreads his legs, twisting round to see the back view; his dangling cock and balls and his wet, pink entrance, the edge of the skirt flaring around his bottom like a picture frame. His face is flushed, lips swollen, eyes wet where the pressure had pushed out a few tears. He lies back down and curls his knees up and stares at himself in the mirror. Trails a hand up his front and picks at the ruined fabric of his skirt. It’s wrinkled and twisted around his middle, the underside spattered with come and then he just - isn’t thinking, just looks at his ruined skirt and the naked length of his body and feels the ache deep in his ass and he - sticks his thumb in his mouth, turns his head to watch himself do it in the mirror. He’s flushed red at the end of his nose and at his cheekbones, eyelashes clumped thick together with tears. He can feel the puff of his breath as it hits the back of his hand. He freezes for a long moment. Then gives his thumb a slow, deep suck. It thrusts into his mouth, then slips back. He opens his mouth with his teeth gripping his thumb, breath hot against the wet skin of it, and swivels his hips around on the floor, feeling his skirt shift and rub at him. He gives his thumb a few more lazy sucks, getting used to the motion and feel of it, the way his thumb registers the slightly textured, hot press of his tongue and the way his mouth registers the presence of his finger. When he sucks on Steve’s cock or Steve’s fingers it’s a one-way street, the velvet-hot skin of Steve’s hard length or the thick, callused stretch of his fingers. This is like a feedback loop of sensation, and it's odd enough in its novelty to make him wonder why he’s never done it before.

His hand mostly blocks the lower half of his face. He curls and uncurls his fingers, then turns his head slightly to see the side view. It looks - he doesn’t know how it looks. Like a paradox. And something he definitely shouldn’t be doing. Something like - with his red, tear-stained face and the evidence of his perversion all over his uncovered body, lying there on the floor - like the most obvious, base way he could subdue himself and make himself helpless all at once. Something Steve would have to reprimand in a gentle voice like Bucky didn’t know any better, because even though he’d been naughty and terrible Steve would be forced to be tender about it. _You couldn’t help it, could you?_

It’s exhausting. He’s exhausted. He curls up to his side and sucks hard at his thumb so he won’t cry. If he does that now he’s not sure he’ll have the energy to finish and the pressure behind his eyes and nose will make his head ache and his eyelids swell up. He lets his eyes slip shut and sucks and breathes and shakes a little and then it's like the act of closing his eyes pulls down the big, long dark like a projector screen on a wall. He sleeps.

*

Bucky wakes in a cold sweat, heart pounding at his chest. He’s clammy all over, hair plastered to his face, shivering  from where he’d been sleeping, naked skin exposed to the open air. He’d been dreaming; the hot, sauna-like press of the everglades around him, a jagged, swishing tail propelling a behemoth animal closer through the water. He’d taken down two high level targets. He’d been made to eviscerate the bodies. His handlers had taken him in a flat-bottomed vessel through a swamp, the smell of damp and fetid greenery around them in an inescapable bubble. They’d laughed as he’d disposed of the remains.

_Think those suckers can jump?_

_Shut the fuck up, Luther._

_Hey, give that here. Let it do the feeding._

A head jerked to the side to usher him away from the propeller.  

_Worse comes to worse it can get another arm to match the other._

_Right. Double the freak show, double the fun. Hope you know how to tie a tourniquet._

Then, low, mean laughter that had twisted Bucky’s stomach up as he’d lifted burlap sacks and dumped them overboard, water thrashed into turmoil below, and now it filters through the dark and heat of his dream as Bucky’s pulled away like bait on a line, through the morass of his conscience and up towards wakefulness.

He jolts to his side, stomach heaving fitfully, throat clutching as he gags. Nothing comes up but bile. The bedroom is silent and dark, save for the steady blue light of the comm, on the bed where Bucky’d left it, shining in the dark like a silent witness.

He’d fed people to animals. Animals that didn’t know any better, acting on instinct. Dumped it all overboard and into their waiting mouths. And now here he was, naked and filthy, with a fucking skirt twisted around his waist.

He slips the skirt off first. It’s beyond ruined, lace snagged in several places and stained with come. He can barely stand to look at it. He crumbles it in hand and stashes it in a plastic bag, shuts it up in one of his dresser drawers. He wipes down as quickly as possible, slips on a pair of track pants and a tank, then snatches the comm up and walks on unsteady legs to the living room. It won’t tell him if he’s missed any incoming communication, but the tablet in the living room will have logged it all as Bucky slept. If Steve had called - if he’d needed him and Bucky had been sleeping - he tries to swallow around the awful clutch of his throat. His body’s still thrumming with energy, wanting to run, to fight, claw-like tendrils of memory clutching at the base of his skull.

He’s still breathing hard, finger shaking as he thumbs the tablet on. There’s a single call in the record about twenty minutes before. Bucky scrambles at the comm.

“Steve,” he says, holding it right up to his mouth like it couldn’t catch him speaking from several feet away. There’s a brief pause.

“On my way back, Buck. Three hour ETA.”

_Alright. Okay, okay._ Bucky’s whole body goes slack with relief so fast his head spins. He has to transfer the comm to his right hand so his left doesn’t accidentally crush it. His voice catches a little when he speaks. He clears his throat before trying again.

“See you then,” Bucky says. He stands for a long moment waiting for Steve to speak again. Then he tosses the comm on the sofa and leaves the room.

*

Bucky finds two blotchy stains on the floor where he’d fallen asleep, which means he has to wipe down the whole room like a forensic team is coming in with a blacklight.

He walks backwards out of the bedroom and takes his tablet to the kitchen first. Takes inventory of the baking ingredients they have on hand. Steve always has an appetite after a mission. For food and Bucky and everything else and maybe if Bucky satisfies the former he can distract Steve from the fucking black hole of need that’s opened up inside of him on the latter.

He decides to chance it with a banana bread recipe that’ll only need one egg and basically requires him to dump everything in a bowl and mix it all together. He pours the end product in a buttered glass pan and sticks it in the oven. Then he sets the timer on his phone and leaves it on the kitchen counter.

He’s had to relax on disposable-everythings since they’d decided to stick around, so that most of their refuse was either recyclable or reduced to compost. He sprays and wipes with a bottle of cleaning product and a couple of microfiber cleaning cloths, then pulls the rugs out and flips the covers up on the bed and upends the desk chair onto the table, sweeps and mops the floor, pouring a tablespoon of hardwood cleaning product into a bucket of water and wringing out the mop so the wood doesn’t soak up any moisture and warp. He overheats in his track pants at one point so he takes them off and tosses them into a laundry basket, finishes mopping in his tank and briefs.

It’s past the time Steve said he’d be home when Bucky finishes. He feels his stomach turn leaden and heavy, which he immediately tries to push away. Shit like this happens sometimes.

He showers. The heat and water and soap make him feel a little better. When he’s done and dressed he grabs a book from his stacks and reads by the window. Eventually, he has to get up and turn on a light to counter the sinking sun outside, and then it's like the act alone sets an army of ants crawling under his skin, and every other thought is _why the fuck is it taking him so long, where is he, where is he, where is he, what if something happened and you weren’t there -_

“Jesus, _shut up,_ ” Bucky yells. His arm snaps out and sends the book flying across the room. He breathes in silence and from one moment to the next he’s smelling something in the air; ashen and bitter.

He launches out of his seat and runs to the kitchen. His phone’s trilling endlessly on the counter as he grabs a towel, yanks the oven door open, and pulls the lava-hot pan out. The edges of the banana bread are burnt black; like a sad, shriveled brick in the middle, shying away from the sides of the pan. Great.

“Me too, pal,” Bucky says, shoving the pan onto the counter. What was the fucking point anyway, if he couldn’t get a simple recipe like this right, if he was just gonna stay behind to do filthy things to himself and waste Steve’s produce.

He throws the towel to the floor. Then picks it back up. Then five minutes later he’s out back, because he’s decided the rugs look very dusty and this means he gets to batter at them with a broom handle while big clouds of dust kick up and not think anything at all.

Bucky’s feeling a little better as he drags them back inside. He hears the distant crunch of tires rolling over the undergrowth as he’s making his way through the kitchen and dumps the rugs where he stands, striding towards the front of the house. He freezes at the door. He can’t seem to bring himself to reach out for the handle.  

Bucky paces for a moment then flings it open. Steve’s walking up the dirt path, intact - Bucky thinks - yes, intact, okay, good. Hair dark at his temples and lines a little deeper around his eyes and a tired smile as he watches Bucky watch him.

“Hey,”

“Hey,” Bucky grunts back. “You didn’t - you said three hours.”

_You said three hours and it’s been six and I’ve been out of my mind in worry and I’ve done terrible, selfish things while you were gone._

“I know,” Steve says. He lets the duffle fall from his arm as he reaches the threshold. “Detour took longer than I thought.”

He holds his arms out slightly like he expects Bucky to just fall into them.

“Fuck your detour,” Bucky says, and he shoves right at Steve’s chest, palm flat against the thick, sturdy layer of uniform molded tight to Steve’s body.

It was terrifying, the grip Steve had on him, the way he could reduce Bucky in three hours to a complete and total mess, and what was he going to do if one day Steve - and here he was making himself soft and vulnerable, sanding away all the rough spots he needed to protect himself.

“I know. Baby, I know. I fucked up,” and here Steve laughs, wipes at his forehead. “I was trying to - jesus can I just hold you?”

Bucky freezes where he stands, arms stiff at his sides, but Steve takes a step forward and another and then he’s gripping Bucky and pulling him into his arms, engulfing him in the hot, thrumming heat of his body. Bucky’s rigid for a moment before he squeezes his eyes shut and tucks his chin down so he’s hiding his face against Steve’s chest. Steve’s murmuring nonsense and rubbing at his back and Bucky breathes in the smell of him, a desperate inhale that shoots straight through his bloodstream. Then he yanks his arms free and winds them around Steve’s waist, clutching him tight around the middle. He thumps Steve hard on the back with his fist, knocking out a laugh that ends in a groan.

“I missed you,” Steve says. He rubs at Bucky’s back. “It was weird.”

“You’re weird,” Bucky shoots back, but it comes out muffled against Steve's’ uniform.

Steve holds him tight and brings his hand up to cradle the back of Bucky’s head and rubs down over and over again, petting at him. Then he’s murmuring even worse nonsense; _missed you, missed my sweet girl_ -

Bucky pounds Steve on his back again, hard.

“Don’t say that right now.”

He can feel Steve pull back to look at him.

“Okay,” Steve says slowly, after a pause, a slight frown marring his forehead. Bucky goes rigid in Steve’s arms and pulls back, eyes skating to the floor. He clears his throat.

“Got anything left in the car?”

“Nope. It’s all here,” Steve replies, leaning down to grab his gear. Bucky grunts out an affirmative, then props the door open with his arm and swivels in place so Steve can step past him. Steve dumps his bag near the kitchen counter and starts stripping where he stands, groaning lowly in relief as he shrugs out of his stiff jacket.

Bucky walks past him to the fridge, determinedly not looking at the stiff lump of banana bread on the counter near Steve.

“What’d you make?” Steve asks. He kneels down to unlace his boots, brow wrinkled as he looks up at Bucky.

“Nothing,” Bucky grunts out. He reaches for a carafe of lemonade. “I burned it, so you better just go ahead and dump it in the compost.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it. The thought of it decomposing into the dirt, worms eating their way through it, lights a flare of anger in his belly. That was _his_ banana bread, and it wasn’t good enough for Steve to eat probably but it wasn’t _worm food_.

Bucky keeps a good foot away from the evidence of his failure like he’s waiting for Steve to put a hazmat suit on and demo the area. Steve makes a soft, scoffing sound in response. He’s down to his cargoes and a white undershirt, darker around his pits and in a tapered circle down his front where he’d sweat through the fabric. Bucky’s eyes skate down Steve’s chest before he can help it. When he looks up Steve’s eyes are on him, a smug, knowing smile on his face. Then he’s moving with intent as Bucky stares at him, rounding the counter, eyes dark. Bucky almost drops the carafe, managing to set it down by the grace of his steady metal arm. He swallows around his suddenly dry throat and reaches blindly for the nearest cupboard. No, this is where he keeps the cereal bowls and, great, Steve’s seeing him act drunk-stupid just on the sight of him. And wasn’t what he’d done to himself enough already? He’s like a fucking Energizer Bunny that just - ran on Steve fumes. He should stick Steve in a bubble so he wouldn’t have to smell him and go all wobbly, panting for it, and take a Sharpie and blackout the plastic so he’d never see Steve’s big, dumb, strong body ever again.  

And now he’s gonna come up behind Bucky and press him up against the counter and slide his hands up Bucky’s chest --

“You should go change,” Bucky blurts out, voice way too loud in the relative silence. He clears his throat and his fingers close around another cabinet knob. The _detailing_ in the metalwork, honestly.

Steve pauses a foot away.

“You sure?” he asks. His expression is indecipherable, tone mild.

“Yup. Yes,” Bucky says. He turns away and opens the next cupboard to his right, peering inside like the door to Narnia might pop open.

“Okay,” Steve says, and he grabs his clothes and duffle and Bucky stands still listening to Steve’s steps disappearing down the hallway.

*

Bucky firmly clears his thoughts away as he goes about finding a matching pair of mason jars and pours the lemonade and looks for ice in the freezer. It settles him inside like the eerie calm after a storm, the way he doesn’t have to think while he fusses with the details, the way he can just - go about his duty. When Steve emerges Bucky’s got iced lemonade and a carefully stacked pyramid of store-bought sugar cookies waiting on a tray.

Steve smiles when he sees it and steps up to Bucky’s side, laying a gentle hand on his hip while he leans forward to peck Bucky on the lips.

“Sit down, first,” Bucky says, gripping the tray tight. Steve smiles and turns and Bucky follows after him to the living room. Steve takes the corner end of the sofa, spreads his legs wide and watches Bucky silently. Bucky’s eyes flit to the open vee of Steve’s legs and then back up, Steve’s expression unreadable, and then Bucky’s holding his legs together and feeling like all his blood is rushing to his head as he bends to set the tray down and pick up Steve’s glass. He feels smaller somehow, like he’s giving way to all the space Steve eats up, and something lights up inside him, terrifyingly happy. He can feel the promise of Steve reaching out and snagging him crackling in the air between them as if Steve’s gone and done it. And when Bucky’s got his own glass in hand Steve reaches up and pulls him down to curl up at his side. His arm settles around Bucky’s shoulder and he rubs his hand soothingly down Bucky’s side.

“Sure you don’t want to…” Steve plucks gently at Bucky’s sweatpants. Bucky’s cheeks flush in embarrassment. He shakes his head stiffly.

“Can’t,” he says simply, staring resolutely down at his drink.

“Why not?” Steve says gently. Then, so low and tender that Bucky’s eyes immediately prickle, “don’t wanna be my girl tonight?” It’s like Steve’s got a private line to Bucky’s tear ducts, his heart aching sharp and twisting up around a flood of yearning. Why does everything have to be so much. He’s going to die.

“I ruined it,” Bucky says, and his voice catches in his throat. Then he’s hot with anger, at himself, at Steve for asking. “I don’t wanna talk bout it. Stick something on, it’s too fucking quiet.”

“Alright,” Steve says, easily, petting at Bucky’s side, infuriatingly gentle, and he reaches for the remote. Bucky staves the urge to shove at Steve and put about a mile in between them by closing his eyes and rolling them up, taking a long, calming breath. The television turns on to the news and Steve automatically flips the channel. Well. That was that. Bucky was glad, because it was stupid anyway, and he’d probably looked ridiculous and Steve was just too preoccupied thinking with little-Steve to notice, a joke of domesticity when the skirt barely covered his ass and the top was obscenely stretched across his chest, and his entire midriff was uncovered. It wasn’t anything an actual - _wife_ would wear at home, not the real ones anyway who didn’t burn a simple recipe and waste the last of their ripe bananas.

He takes a strong sip of his lemonade and nudges Steve’s side.

“How’d it go?”

Steve’s eyebrows raise in mild surprise, then his expression settles into a kind of relief as he starts debriefing Bucky. The abandoned weapons cache was actually a semi-active cell, empty of operatives once Steve had arrived but with signs of recent use; the activity their sensors had caught earlier that morning. Steve gets heated enough at one point to reach for his tablet and point out possible sites in the surrounding area that might be serving as a temporary base. Bucky nods along and gives his own input and for a while as they talk it feels good, familiar, and he doesn’t have to think very hard and nothing’s confusing. None of it scrambles up his insides.

Steve ends up being the first to yawn. He rubs sheepishly at his head afterwards and Bucky laughs, hauling off from where he’d been pressed up to Steve’s side.

“First one there gets his ass reamed,” Steve says, and then he heaves off the sofa and takes the slowest step in the world, like the room’s filled with molasses and he’s wading through. Bucky’s heart does a happy little wallop.

He shoots past Steve, setting a minor record as he makes it to their bed and dives in.

*

Despite his obvious exhaustion Steve’s still hot for it, covering Bucky with his big, warm body the second he slides into bed. He kisses Bucky while reaching between them to line their cocks up, rutting down with his hips. Bucky moans softly against Steve’s mouth and slides his hands up Steve’s sides. He opens his legs around Steve’s hips, splaying them wide. Steve keeps rubbing up on him until Bucky’s so hard he’s leaking onto the flat of his belly. It’s uncoordinated, the near-miss of Steve’s dick against Bucky’s as they rub and slide against each other, the way Steve sometimes ends up rubbing his dick on Bucky’s stomach, moving Bucky’s hard length around with his own. Bucky thinks they must look like a pair of earthworms, rubbing their wriggly bodies all over each other in the dirt, and it makes him swallow down a laugh.

“What?” Steve asks in a breathy whisper.

“Make worm-love to me, Steve,” Bucky whispers back, laughing around the words. Steve grins wide, like he totally gets it, his hips still rutting down. Then he bites down quickly at the side of Bucky’s jaw as Bucky keeps giggling.

“Hush. Focus,” Steve says, fake-serious.

Bucky fake-frowns back.

They’re both hard and aching when Steve kisses down Bucky’s throat and settles at his chest. He grabs one pec with his hand and squeezes, kneading at the flesh as he latches onto the other, licking with the flat of his tongue at Bucky’s nipple. It sends a spark of pleasure straight to Bucky’s dick, and he gasps, “oh, uh.” He pushes his chest into it. His mouth falls open. Steve keeps flicking at it with the tip of his tongue, hardening it into a peaked little bud.  

  

 

“Steve,” Bucky sighs, and then he has to force the words out. “Touch it.”

He cradles the back of Steve’s head tentatively. He can’t help wanting to watch it, the pink of Steve’s tongue lapping out, the purse of his lips as he latches onto Bucky’s nipple and sucks. A bolt of sharp pleasure shoots straight from Bucky’s sensitive nipple, making his body curl up tight. “Oh, _fuck._ ”

Steve unlatches. He licks out at it with the flat of his tongue.

“There’s my good girl,” he murmurs, breath hot against Bucky’s wet skin. Bucky whimpers. His fingers curl down in Steve’s hair.

“ _Steve_.” God, he can feel them swelling. The whole of his pecs as Steve kneads at one and sets his lips to the other, latching on and repeating the same, licking Bucky’s nipple into hardness then sucking in steady, unrelenting pulls.

“Uhhh, oh, oh,” Bucky cries out. He reaches down blindly between his legs and cups his swollen sac, tugging gently at it as Steve sucks on him. Then Steve’s unlatching, still squeezing and rubbing at Bucky with his hand as he grins down at him.

“Got your titty nice and ripe just suckin on it, huh?” Steve asks, and the word throbs through Bucky’s body, straight to his gut.

He claps his free hand over Steve’s mouth like he can force the word back in. Steve only grins, shaking his head free, and then he squeezes at Bucky’s chest with both hands, pushes them up a bit, rubs at the nipples with his thumbs.

“Don’t want me saying what you got here, baby?”

Bucky’s face does a funny thing, so then he has to cover that instead.

Steve taps at the side of one, making it jiggle.

“Push them up,” he says, sternly.

Bucky groans out. Oh, Jesus. What the fuck.

Bucky presses his chest up, pointing his hard nipples up for Steve to touch, eyes scrunched tight, shaking a little with every breath. Like he’s - he’s begging with them. _Please, please, please._ Steve takes the tip of his wet fingers and rubs them back and forth across Bucky’s aching nipples, moving the little nubs around, a steady stream of sensation rolling in little waves through Bucky’s body.

“Yes. Oh,” Bucky gasps out. He squeezes down on his swollen length, trying to stave off that telltale tingle low in his balls. Then, desperate and quick, feeling like he wants the bed to open up and swallow him, “suck on them. Suck on me, please.”

“There’s a good girl,” Steve says, and he pinches both nipples and rolls them between his fingers and Bucky’s hips jolt up, head knocking back against his pillow.

“Ohh, uh.”

Bucky’s dick blurts out a wad of wet.

“Got my girl ready to blow just having her tits played with,” Steve says, low and nasty. _Holy shit._ He gives the firm swell of Bucky’s tit a slow squeeze and shakes it a little, then acquiesces, latching onto the nipple of the other one, sucking hard and swirling his tongue on it before pulling off, red mouth open.

“Fat little nipple-whore.” Oh, _fuck._ With that Steve spanks one swollen tit with the flat of his hand, sending a sharp pulse of pleasure from Bucky’s chest to his swollen groin.

“ _Oh, god,_ ” Bucky cries out, high and breathy and desperate, and he grabs onto Steve’s shoulder with his free hand, curls his fingers tight into the muscle there. Steve isn’t joking, neither of them are, and Bucky doesn’t have a single silly thing to say, overwhelmed with sensation. He has to tug on his balls to keep from blowing on the spot. He feels like he’s burning up, churning hot like molten lava, all his blood at his tits and between his legs.

“Steve. Say it again,” Bucky pleads, fingers clumsy, slipping as he strokes himself.

Steve pulls back, rocks forward on his knees so Bucky has to splay his legs wide to accommodate him, propping them on Steve’s open thighs. He makes a considering noise, reaching down to squeeze Bucky’s chest together so it’s like - when Bucky did it to himself in the mirror, and Bucky gives out a low, helpless moan.

“Why don’t you tell me,” Steve says, “tell me what a slut you are to have your titties sucked on.”

“I’m a slut,” Bucky gasps out, and shame floods through him in an overwhelming wave. His eyes prickle hot and wet. “Please. Please suck my titties.”

“Tell me how you want these titties milked,” Steve says, hands kneading Bucky’s chest in soft, circular motions. “These fat little cow tits. Gonna keep you all to myself and milk them every day.”

“Oh, god,” Bucky squeaks. “Yeah. Yes. Steve, do it. Do what you said.”

And then Steve’s squeezing them one at a time like an actual cow, Bucky mindlessly grunting out in time and tugging at his dick, shameless, filthy. He can’t even believe how hard he’s getting off on it even as it’s happening, how deep the throbbing pleasure is pulsing from the core of him, everything centered around the two aching nubs at his chest.

Steve pauses after every squeeze to roll a nipple between his fingers, plucking it into the air.  

Bucky pushes with his whole body into Steve’s relentless hands, fist making wet sounds as he pulls at his cock, his tits getting steadily milked, feet pressing down as he rocks his hips up. Then Steve’s voice is dirty and low.

“Go on, tug your little udder, baby. Go ahead and blow a load for me,” he says, and oh fuck Bucky’s mind melts, his dick jerks in his hand as he pulls and pulls on it and he’s shuddering, totally gone, eyes rolling, baby grunts falling from his open mouth as he comes.  

His whole world narrows down to nothing; the rush of blood in his ears and the waves of pleasure rolling through his body as Steve keeps squeezing and kneading at him.

“There you go,” Steve keeps saying, “there you go sweet girl.”

Bucky breathes and shakes until Steve’s hands gentle down to nothing, then stop. Steve swipes gently at Bucky’s raw nipples as he grunts through the last few shocks. He’s come all over himself, hand wet and sticky as he lets his arms fall to the side. He lets his head fall back and just breathes, whole body slack.

“There’s a good girl,” Steve says soothingly. Bucky blinks slowly, coming back to himself. His arms are lax at his side, fingers half-curled.

“Thanks, Farmer Steve,” he says flatly, and Steve curls over with a guffaw. Then he’s knee-walking up Bucky’s chest and tugging at his big cock and when his chest gets that tell-tale flush Bucky says, “moo,” just to watch Steve cackle so hard he gets tears in his eyes and his cock shoots off like that, Steve laugh-coming all over Bucky’s swollen pecs.

He groans and flops down on the other side of the bed. Bucky trembles and breathes.

“Good fucking lord,” Steve says.

Holy hell, weren’t they a pair, Bucky thinks. It washes over him and shakes him up inside, something like gut-deep fear, the way he’d let Steve into the darkest, filthiest part of him, but so had Steve. Bucky had those parts of Steve too. He takes a few steadying breaths before he can speak. And then its:

“What would you - how would you keep me.”

“Hm?”

“If I could direct my question to Farmer Steve, thanks.”

“Listen, you,” Steve growls, and Bucky stifles a giggle. Steve’s hand snakes out to tug Bucky across the bed. Bucky busts up as Steve yanks him closer. Then Bucky makes a loud, panicked moo, choking air as it sends another fit of laughter shaking through him. It must be the endorphins or something, cause he’d come the hardest he’d probably ever come and he’s still brave enough to poke at Steve about it.

Steve throws his leg around Bucky, half-covering him from behind, turning him in place and pressing him down on the mattress, like a wrestling move. He ruts pointlessly against Bucky’s ass. Murmurs low in his ear.

“Yeah you’ll be laughing when I hold you down next time and nail your cunt, won’t you?”

“Mmm,” Bucky hums out. The pressure of Steve’s weight on him is delicious. He swivels his ass slowly against Steve’s crotch, rubs his cheek against the sheets.

“Close your eyes, we’re imagining,” Steve says, and when Bucky does it’s like he’s being sunk down through layers of clouds.

Steve rubs against Bucky’s ass idly, like he’s churning up an idea with his dick.

“I’d milk my fat heifer for real next time, how about that?” Steve murmurs, and Bucky shudders under him. He feels his mind blow like a dark hole expanding. “A pump at each of your tits and one at your udder and they’d just pull and suck at you, milk your fat tits and your dirty little udder and you wouldn’t go anywhere until I was done with you.”

_Sweet fucking christ._ Bucky can almost hear it, can almost feel it in the ache at his chest and between his legs, fat and swollen and the pumps relentlessly pulling at him, a mechanical hiss filling the room over Bucky’s helpless moans. And Steve would be moving around him, absentmindedly patting his flank, checking the machines milking him, face impassive and utterly calm.

Then Steve jostles him a bit. He’s petting at Bucky’s hair as he floats, just pressing on him and holding him down and Bucky wants to be kept there more than anything, but he feels his skin nearly itching, he’s getting stickier and more disgusting by the second. He wants to knock his head against something hard but Steve’s too heavy and he can’t move.

“I hate that I have to get up,” Bucky mumbles out. _Stay here,_ he tells himself, and feels his whole being revolt at the thought.

“I know, baby,” Steve says simply. He sighs a little as he moves off, but it sounds more like it’s a groan from his sore muscles and general exhaustion than aggravation at Bucky. Bucky knows; Steve gets it.

*

Bucky pauses in his tracks the next day. He’d slept so deep and well it had simultaneously felt like an eon later when he’d woken and no time at all, like he’d gone somewhere he didn’t exist, a bone-deep rest.

Steve’s sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, chin resting on his hand as he scrolls through his tablet. There’s a big slice missing from the banana bread, a half eaten wedge in Steve’s hand. As Bucky watches Steve pops it into his mouth.

“Steve,” Bucky says.

“Hey,” Steve replies, turning towards him. He smiles, eyes sliding down Bucky’s body in obvious satisfaction. “Morning.”

Bucky pauses. Then he grunts back a noncommittal response. He feels his shoulders go stiff as he sets about making his coffee, waiting for the verdict.

“Well?” Bucky asks, sharply, when Steve hasn’t said anything and Bucky’s halfway through filling the french press.

Steve gives him a blank, questioning look.

“Why are you eating that shit?” Bucky grits out. He tries to relax the death grip he’s got on the plunger but it’s like his hand is frozen solid.

“It’s good, Buck,” Steve replies, jaw working as he chews. “It’s delicious.”

Bucky must make a small noise, or maybe it’s the way his feet feel like twin blocks of cement, because Steve’s face goes gentle and he hops off his stool, dusting crumbs from his lap. He walks up to Bucky and grips his arm to steady him, kisses at his cheek.

“It was real good, Buck,” he says gently, and Bucky breathes out shakily. God. Over a fucking cake. Bucky wants to move and shrug it off and maybe kick something but he ends up just letting his eyes shut as Steve tilts his chin up for a kiss.

“Got me fed and ready for the day, didn’t you? So good to me, baby, even when I’m not here.”

“ _Steve._ ”

And then he won’t stop, because he’s Steve, and he knows the exact things to say, pulling it from its nameless place and molding it into spoken word.

“Always thinking about your man, aren’t you?” Steve murmurs.

_Oh._ Bucky trembles in Steve’s grip.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, finally. He nods his head, flushing warm in his chest, his belly squirming. Steve smiles and pecks Bucky on the lips again and then he - fucking - pats at Bucky’s ass as he moves past him, as Bucky turns and gapes after him in shock. The back door swings shut behind Steve. Bucky imagines himself steaming up like a cartoon character right on the spot, screeching like a tea kettle.

He unsticks his legs and manages to pour his coffee and only blushes a little. The steam’s just really hot on his face.

His brain won’t stop replaying the smug set of Steve’s shoulders as he’d loped off. It makes Bucky feel like - he’s being put in his place. Pat on the head, Steve secure in how good Bucky was going to be, how obedient. He has to stop mid-sip and press at his warm cheeks. The twist in his belly makes him groan out loud, makes him feel like he’s gonna walk right out of his skin.

The hum of Steve’s car engine draws Bucky out of his torment. He walks to the window overlooking the back of the house, a brief stretch of land that quickly meets the forestline. He sticks his fingers in the blinds to part them. Steve’s car drives into view. He kills the engine and steps out. Pops the hood and yanks it open, the muscles in his arms stretching. Bucky pulls back with a jolt and the blinds snap shut. Then he turns his face away as he reaches back with his arm, so he can’t see himself pulling the dangling string that slowly turns the blinds fully open.

And then it’s like a honey-scene. That sweet vat of golden syrup Bucky drops bodily into. He brings his tablet to the kitchen and pulls up a recipe from his bookmarks. He’s made this one before. A chicken orzo soup and thick slices of garlic bread in the oven. Simple and hearty and rich. He slips his apron on first, standing at the window and watching Steve bend over his engine, arm moving as he tinkers with something inside. He’s stripped down to his white tank and already he’s got streaks of grease up the pale skin of his arms.

Bucky finds himself moving before he can help it.

“You’re gonna burn up like that,” he yells out, pushing the back door open. Steve sticks his head out and squints at him. And there he is, standing in his apron and hollering from the back porch. He might as well have a spatula in hand, balanced against his hip, while he rings a dinner bell with the other. Oh, Jesus.

Steve only seems mildly amused as he sits on the steps and Bucky slathers his arms and chest with sunblock. He flushes like a schoolgirl with his hands smoothing down Steve’s muscles, fussing with him like a mother hen.

“Thanks, baby,” Steve says softly, eyes roving down Bucky’s front.

“Didn’t want you bitching about it later,” Bucky grumbles. For all of the thirty minutes it took Steve to heal, anyways.

Bucky washes his hands at the sink and sets about dicing onions then cubing the half-frozen chicken and dumps both in a pot. He adds olive oil and a teaspoon of tomato paste and fills it half-full with water. It’s soothing, the crisp sound of the knife slicing through the vegetables and the hum of the spark of the range as it fires up and the random _thwack_ of a cabinet closing as Bucky reaches for his ingredients. He’d tried recording himself once on his phone because - he doesn’t know exactly why only that he wanted to see it, see himself this way. He’d ended up watching it in bed and falling asleep to the sounds, phone tucked to his chest. He’d looked busy and unsuspecting and utterly at peace, focused on this small, mundane task, devoted to it, flitting about the screen like a treasured songbird in its cage.

An hour later the soup is well on its way to finished when Steve ducks his head into the kitchen.

“Gonna run a quick errand. The drive will probably take me a while though.”

“Alright, it’s gonna be - dinner’ll be ready when you get back.”

At that Steve slips inside, puts his hand on Bucky’s hip again and kisses him, slower and deeper this time, making a low, pleased sound.  

*

Bucky hears Steve arriving a couple of hours later and he plates their lunch, listening to Steve move around the house.

Then they sit at the counter, spoons dipping into their soup, Steve humming quietly as he eats. Bucky’s least expecting it when Steve pipes up.

“What happened to your skirt?”

Bucky’s spoon nearly misses his mouth. He blows on it first while Steve patiently waits, hands set down on the counter. Bucky rolls his eyes, swallows.

“I told you. I messed it up.”

“Messed it up.”

“I wore it while you were gone and jerked off in it and now it's ruined and I don’t have a dry cleaner stashed somewhere on the premises,” Bucky rattles out. “Okay? That’s that.”

Steve raises his eyebrows, but this is probably because Steve doesn’t understand. Fabric like that wasn’t anything Bucky could just toss in their ancient washing machine and hang out on their line. And if Steve tries to make Bucky admit that part of it was just punishing himself, because he could at least clean it first before tossing it away, Bucky might march to the drawer he’d stashed it in and symbolically burn it. And it wasn’t like he could just _by the way, could you take a break next time you go on a mission to save the world and launder my come-stained skirt? Thanks._ The thought alone makes Bucky want to Shawshank Redemption his way through a dark hole and never return.

“Alright,” Steve says, simply. “Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t cause you - didn’t want to anymore.”

Bucky’s heart knocks loose in his chest. His spoon clatters in his bowl.

“That part’s not going away,” he snaps, alarm rushing through him.

“I know. I know,” Steve says. His voice is gentle, understanding. He sets his hand down on Bucky’s thigh, a steady, soothing pressure. Bucky forces himself to breathe. “I don’t want it to.”

God but this is exactly why it was easier to not have to look at Steve while they talked, ever. Bucky feels like a racehorse kicking at the gate. He lets them both sit in silence for a while before he speaks.

“Want another slice?” he asks, eyeing the few crumbs left on Steve’s plate.

“Yes, please,” Steve says, and he tugs Bucky forward as he’s sliding out of his chair, and kisses him for a long time, until Bucky’s melting against Steve’s chest and winding his arms around Steve’s neck.

*

“I got something for you,” Steve says afterwards, as Bucky’s carrying their dishes to the sink. Bucky rolls his eyes a little, but he can’t help smiling as he turns the faucet on, running it over their plates.

He’s thinking about the dishes in the sink and how they need another produce run and whether the soil out back’s good for tilling, just a little patch near the back porch, as he follows Steve to the bedroom. Steve’s silent and for a moment Bucky doesn’t see anything. Then he’s staring down at the bed and freezing in place. There’s a - something - folded neatly at the foot of the bed. Bucky sees cotton and a deep neck and flower stitching at the shoulder.

“Pick it up,” Steve says. Bucky’s  brain stutters as he walks forward mechanically. He pinches the fabric carefully at its shoulders and lifts it up so it unfolds.

Bucky stares at it for a long moment. It’s a simple wrap dress, a chaste opening at the neck, cap sleeves, the entire thing made of the same cloth; a beige cotton with pale blue stitching and flowers embroidered near the neck and down the front. There’s a spike in Bucky’s throat. He can’t speak. His fingers dig in so hard he has to force himself to relax before he tears it in half.

“Thought you might need something for around the house,” Steve says softly. He places his hand gently at the small of Bucky’s back, watching him. “It’s nothing fancy - ”

“I love it,” Bucky says quickly, and his eyes go hot instantly. He clutches it to his chest like Steve might reach out and snatch it back, hunching his shoulders over it. His heart’s hammering away like he’s been given - he doesn’t even know what - a chest of pirate’s gold. A box of his best knives.

“Wanna try it on?” Steve asks gently. His hand rubs at Bucky’s back. Bucky jerks his head into a nod. He walks to the bathroom, dress pressed to his front. When he’s closed the door he lets himself breathe a little, holds the dress out in front of him and takes his time drinking it in. Steve must’ve picked it up in the closest place to them, that little country town in the middle of nowhere. It’s clearly meant for practical use, every day use, so Bucky could wear it all day long and be comfortable and not worry if he’d get splashed with a little salsa sauce while he cooked dinner that it would fall on naked skin. And he would...look the part. It was a real house dress for a real wife. He slips out of his clothes with his heartbeat thudding at his throat and unties the front. It’s so simple to open. All he has to do is wrap the two folds over each other and tie it to the side. He imagines Steve accosting him, clever fingers untying the simple knot at Bucky’s waist, and just like that Bucky would be naked all down his front. In two seconds Steve could slip it off him and have his hands all over Bucky.

Bucky steps out into the bedroom, smoothing his hands down nervously at his sides. It’s obviously not meant for his particular shape, so it’s bigger at the hips than he needs it, falling right above his knees, but it looks...he thought he looked good in the mirror. He thought it looked - pretty.

Steve’s sitting at the foot of the bed. His whole body goes tight as he spots Bucky, his eyes dark as they eat Bucky up head to toes. “Buck - ” Steve’s voice snags. Bucky feels a surge of something like pride around the jangle of his nerves. He’s doing this to Steve. It lets him take a step forward, shoulders straightening a little. Then he stalls again.

“Come here, gorgeous,” Steve says, voice so rough it snags like a hook in Bucky’s gut and tugs him forward. For the life of him Bucky can’t find anything to say, doesn’t trust himself to even open his mouth. He halts in front of the open splay of Steve’s legs. Rewinds Steve’s voice in his mind. _Gorgeous._

“You like your dress, baby?” Steve asks. His hands come up to clasp around Bucky’s waist.

 

 

Bucky nods his head once and tries to speak, but his voice catches in his throat traitorously and he has to shut his eyes, tilt his head back.

“I look - it’s not - ” he chokes out. He loves it but he knows, he knows his broad shoulders and his muscular arms and his thick thighs. He wants to shout, _say it! Just say it! Say I look ridiculous but tell me it’s okay to like it anyways._ He’ll be fine with it all as long as Steve lets him keep it, as long as he does Bucky the favor of pretending he isn’t anything but what he is.

“You callin me a liar, Barnes?” Steve asks. Then, “look at me.”

“Please, don’t.”

“Bucky,” Steve insists, steel in his voice. Bucky looks down, somewhere at Steve’s lap, staring blindly.

“You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and if you wanna call me a liar you’re gonna look me in the eyes and say it to my face.”

Bucky chokes out a laugh. Steve grins wide, and his arms come up and grab Bucky, pulling him down onto his lap.

“Jesus, I wanna stab you right now,” Bucky says.

“I love you too, baby,” Steve says, and tumbles them both down to the bed. They both move fast from there, Bucky’s heart pounding faster than the very first time he got to put his mouth on Steve, feeling like the good Lord was gonna strike a bolt of lightning from the sky just to personally smite him. Bucky stuffs a pillow under the small of his back to help his legs tilt open. Steve slicks himself up as Bucky watches eagerly, smoothing his hands up Steve’s arms and shoulders. He clutches at Steve as Steve presses his fingers down between Bucky’s spread legs, leaning down to kiss at Bucky’s face.

Steve groans low once he’s settled between Bucky’s legs and pushing in. Bucky’s dress slides down his open legs to pool around his thighs. And god - he can’t stop staring down at himself, at the flower pattern down his front and the naked spread of his legs and his dress bunched up around his hips. Steve’s strong body moving in between Bucky’s legs, Bucky’s ass tilted up like an offering for the thick plunge of Steve into him.

“There’s my gorgeous girl,” Steve breathes out. He slams his hips down, swivels them slowly once they meet Bucky’s ass. He’s pressing right against that spot inside Bucky, and Bucky’s ass throbs heavy with pleasure. He moans out at the feeling.

Steve leans down on his forearms and lets his hips and legs do most of the work, grinding against Bucky’s ass, then his hot mouth his right up on Bucky’s ear and he won’t stop, _letting me fuck that sweet pussy, gorgeous girl, best little wife, there you go baby, come on that dick, come on, come on._  

“Uh. Oh, god, oh fuck,” Bucky cries out, hands gripping at Steve’s middle as Steve pumps against that ticklish ache inside him. Then his ass is clamping down on it and Steve is grinding it out of him, Bucky grunting out _uh, uh, uh_.

“Mm,” Steve hums, eating up Bucky’s sighs with kisses. He keeps swiveling his hips lazily against Bucky’s ass until his cock jerks and spurts and he keeps working it around even then, wetting up Bucky’s hot insides. Bucky lets them both breathe for a bit, then Steve shoves to the side and Bucky slides out of bed. He’s careful to gather his dress up and hold it to his chest, and when he’s a few paces away he turns around, grinning, and pulls a parody of a curtsy, wobbling as his knees bend.

Steve grins back at him, fucked out, pink at his chest, but utterly delighted.

“Magnificent,” he calls out. Then, “your roses, my darling.” And Bucky nearly doubles over with a snort because Steve’s faux British accent is still fucking _terrible._

Steve throws an imaginary bouquet out to Bucky’s feet. Bucky makes a shocked scoff.

“Oh, do save it for the dressing room, Captain Rogers,” Bucky says, dry and airy. He sniffs and swivels in place. He turns back at the bathroom door and finds Steve openly eyeing the sway of his bare ass, head propped on his hand. He keeps smiling at Bucky like the biggest dope, even as Bucky reaches out with one leg and pushes the bathroom door shut with his toes.

  

 

Steve lasts about an hour the next morning before he’s grabbing Bucky from behind and bending him over the kitchen counter. Bucky’d found a scone recipe that didn’t require heavy cream, just milk, and he’d washed a bowl of blueberries at the sink, idly wishing something else would break in Steve’s car, so he would have another show to watch out the window.

Now his palms skid across the floured surface before him, as Steve holds him tight around the waist with one strong arm, and molds a hand to Bucky’s chest, kneading at him over his dress. Bucky lets out a soft, startled sound. His knees knock forward, and he scrambles to steady himself.

“You look so fucking good,” Steve groans, voice muffled against the back of Bucky’s neck. He kisses at the line of Bucky’s neck and bites down gently at his shoulder. Bucky tilts his head to the side to give Steve access, mouth falling open.

“Steve,” he sighs out. A shudder runs through him as Steve slides a big hand up his dress, fabric bunching up around his arm. Steve groans when his hand meets naked skin.

“You bare up in here, baby?”

“Oh. I didn’t - nothing felt like it really fit,” Bucky gasps out. His fingers slip further in the flour as Steve grinds against him from behind, thick and hard and Bucky has the sudden, intense sense memory of Steve, slick and plunging up into him and the powder - _food_ \- flour underneath his fingers and then it’s like - the two senses warp in Bucky’s mind and his stomach packs its bags and tries to jump for it up his throat.

He goes stiff all over. He yanks his arms up off the counter.

“Okay, bad, bad, bad,” Bucky says quickly. He holds his hands rigid in the air, fingers outstretched. Steve stops immediately. His arms disappear from around Bucky’s middle and he takes a step back, cold air washing over Bucky’s back.

“Bucky?”

“Uggggh.”

“What do you need?”

“Just. Help me wash my hands.”

Steve strides away quickly and turns the water on at the sink and waits for Bucky to walk over, hands held in the air like a resurrected mummy. Steve’s turned both lever handles so the water’s hot but not scalding, and he dumps two pumps of soap in Bucky’s hands while Bucky wrinkles his nose up and washes both arms to the elbows like he’s prepping for surgery.

When he’s done Steve hands him a paper towel to dry off. Everything’s silent and the sound of Bucky drying off is too loud and Steve’s hand is held out a little like he wants to touch Bucky but Bucky’s made it awkward, he’s ruined it now.

“That was weird,” Bucky says stiffly. Saying the words makes his whole face go hot, a sudden pressure behind his eyes and nose. Steve hands him another ply.

“Better?”

Bucky sniffs. He really has to get every single last drop in between his fingers and over areas that look pretty dry but might be wet and never look Steve in the eyes ever again. Maybe if he keeps drying his now dry hands Steve will just have a momentary lapse in memory and forget anything happened.

“Yes.”

“I caught you off guard.”

Bucky shrugs. He straightens his shoulders and looks somewhere to Steve’s left.

“I need to make my scones,” Bucky says. “So.” He holds still and after a pause Steve just says, “alright.”  

He pecks a gentle kiss on Bucky’s cheek. When the back door shuts behind him Bucky holds his right arm with his left, curls it into a fist, and knocks it gently against his forehead, teeth gritted wide until the urge to do worse dissipates.

*

Steve is back before noon. Bucky’s made chickpea stew for lunch because they still have enough canned beans in their pantry to feed a small army and he’d taken on the task of using their store up. It made him feel efficient, magnanimous and responsible, saving Steve the extra trips for groceries, like they’ve got a budget to stick to and Bucky gets to take charge of this small but weighty task, help them save their money.

“Smells good,” Steve says, stopping by Bucky at the stove as he’s stirring the pot. He places his hand at Bucky’s waist. “Let’s eat in the living room.”

And that’s that. He’s gentle but he isn’t asking, and Bucky feels his stomach melt to its knees. It snuggles down in bed and pull the covers to its chin.

“Okay,” Bucky says, voice soft, staring straight down into the bubbling stew. Steve gives him a small pat and disappears down the hallway. The silence of Steve’s expectation shoots right through Bucky to his gut. He doesn’t need to tell Bucky anything further, he just expects it. He knows it’ll get done.

Steve’s got his tablet in hand when he returns. He’s cleaned up and changed into a fresh shirt. Bucky’s plated the stew. He cut up slices of thick wheat bread. He brings them both water with lemon wedges to Steve on a tray and they sit tailor-style in front of the coffee table, backs to the sofa.

Bucky’s dress rides up as he folds his legs. Steve settles a hand on Bucky’s bare thigh, already digging into his stew and Bucky has to do - something. He reaches for the control with hasty fingers and turns it on, watches blindly for a few seconds and listens to the sound of Steve eating. Bucky’d sliced the onion, holding it with his bare hand, he’d scooped out tomato paste and chosen the spices and stood over the pot as he stirred it and Steve was dipping his spoon into the end product, savoring it in his mouth and swallowing, humming a little in that absentminded way that meant he really liked what he was eating and was completely unaware he was doing it, thumb swiping gently at Bucky’s skin.

Bucky forces himself to eat and not sit there and - expand with it all and float towards the ceiling - but then the moment expands with him anyway and he has to say something, has to balance it out, it’s too much unbearable good.

“I fed people to alligators,” he blurts out. Steve pauses with his spoon in the air. The light from the screen plays blue and green across his face, then a bright beam as it switches to commercials and a peppy voice tries to sell them phone coverage.

“Like, recently?”

“ _No,_ Jesus,” Bucky says.

Steve’s face is so blank and he’s so silent, for a whole eternally stretched, intolerable five seconds, that Bucky groans and scrunches his eyes tight and tilts to his side until his shoulder hits the floor. Then he turns and shoves against the sofa and - scoots bodily right under the table.

There’s a long pause. Then Steve unfolds his legs and lets them stretch out before him. Bucky tucks his own up closer to his chest. The table’s just high enough that his shoulder almost brushes it and everything’s softer and darker and hushed. Steve’s legs are there but Bucky can’t see Steve’s face and it unlocks Bucky’s voice, makes the unbearable feeling dissipate.

“Buck?” Steve says gently, voice slightly muffled. His palm fits at the edge of the table. He scoots it away from his chest an inch. Pauses.

“Don’t say it isn’t my fault,” Bucky says, loudly. His voice almost sounds like it echoes in the enclosed space. The table’s underside is so close and wide and he can see nothing but the flat stretch of its belly. He wishes it could turn to something malleable and fold down on him, mold to his body and press him to the ground. Then Steve wouldn’t be able to see or recognize him, he’d be a lump like a piece of furniture and Steve could walk past or move him around or use him and Bucky wouldn’t have a thing to say.

“Okay,” Steve replies. He should walk away and let Bucky have his tantrum in peace, snatch his company away until Bucky deserves it. Instead Steve curls to his side and leans down and then Bucky’s looking into his big earnest eyes, his face completely solemn.

“Password,” Bucky says.

Steve thinks for a second, scrunching his face up comically. Bucky can almost see a thought bubble appear over his head.

“Steve loves Bucky,” Steve replies.

“Gross. No. Denied entry.”

Steve thinks for a bit. Then he tries again.

“Steve understands Bucky wasn’t acting of his own will and even though it’s over it still hurts and that’s okay,” Steve says. “And Steve still loves Bucky.”

Bucky feels his throat seal up like the goddamn Cave of Wonders. Poof. Gone. He can only blink, eyes springing wet, and blink and blink.

“Baby?”

“Oka-ay,” Bucky says, voice gone jelly. His vision fills up watery, like a submarine sinking below the surface, as Steve scoots his big body under. Steve reaches over to put an arm around Bucky and his shoulder heaves the table up.

“Oops,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. Bucky chokes out a laugh. Steve smiles gently, matching their bodies head to toe, so his face is a few inches away. He pillows his head on his forearm and sighs, rubs at Bucky’s back through his dress. It’s ridden up. Bucky fidgets and Steve tugs it back down, then rubs at his back again.

“I don’t wanna keep dragging you through this shit,” Bucky says quietly.

“Well, this is what happens. You stuck my picture in your magic notebook and brought me to life.”

Bucky takes a moment to consider that.

“Dammit,” he replies. Monkey’s paw’d yet again.

Steve shrugs, eyes slipping shut and mouth pulling down tight. Like, _oh well. This is what you get._

His voice is mild when he speaks.

“It’s been a crazy ride. Is this how all humans live?” Steve asks.

“Other humans have better people in their lives.”

“Hmm,” Steve replies consideringly. Then, “I like it this way. I don’t wanna be other humans and I love my person. No one’s ever gonna take him away from me. How’s that sound?”

And it should be ending in disaster, because he’d fucked it all up, but instead it’s gone so far the other way Bucky doesn’t believe his ears. His heart climbs into a rocketship and shoots itself into space, and Steve’s heart is the hapless fool holding onto the flank, setting its determined heart-jaw and climbing up into the cockpit. And then they’re moving fast together. Two idiot hearts. Bucky doesn't know where. It doesn’t matter.

“Tolerable,” Bucky replies, finally. Steve grins wide and hard, like Bucky’s given him the moon.

  

 

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr inspo tag for this fic](http://maximoff.tumblr.com/tagged/kept-on-the-wing)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] kept on the wing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9435791) by [sallysparrow017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysparrow017/pseuds/sallysparrow017)




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